"Wookieepedia is a lavish and stunning homage to the Star Wars pop cultural phenomenon. Thanks to its professional appearance, the scope of its content, the quality of its writers and diligence of its administrators, Wookieepedia has become a valuable resource to fans both casual and obsessive, as well as to Star Wars authors. It's becoming the new nexus for everyone who wants to know as much as Yoda about that galaxy far, far away."

Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki is a wiki that was started on March 4, 2005, and strives to be the premier source of information on all aspects of the Star Wars universe. This includes information from the Star Warsfilms and Expanded Universe, as well as information of value to fans. The Star Wars wiki is inspired by Wikipedia, but can expand on Star Wars information in greater detail and with more freedom than Wikipedia. Wookieepedia was founded when Wikipedia users began to complain of the overabundance of minutiae related to Star Wars that began appearing on Wikipedia. Since then, it has expanded to become one of the largest wikis on the Internet.

As a fan-created encyclopedia, Wookieepedia is not intended to be a primary source, nor is it a replacement for the Databank, the Encyclopedia, or any other official source. Rather, it serves as a fan effort to summarize all aspects of the Star Wars universe in the best way possible, while pointing the reader to the respective official sources.

Contents

History

The founding of Wookieepedia

Evolution of a wiki

Wikipedia is a collaboratively developed, free content encyclopedia. It is a general knowledge encyclopedia, rather than being specific to one topic (as Wookieepedia is Star Wars–specific). Because of this, it is not always particularly friendly to in-depth knowledge specific to a given fictional universe. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia allows anyone to edit it. Due to the broad nature of its editors, the site covers a wide variety of topics, and has millions of articles.

Chad Barbry, under the screenname of "Cbarbry," was a regular contributor to Wikipedia, participating in a number of different subjects within the online encyclopedia, including Biblical history and technology since October 17, 2004.[1] In January of 2005, Steven Greenwood joined Wikipedia under the screenname of "Riffsyphon1024," adding articles in the subject of geography and popular culture. Immediately after working on these articles of interest, he took the job of sorting the various Star Wars articles on the site. As Wikipedia was concerned, only notable items would have complete articles, with the rest of the minor subjects with descriptions on a giant list. Planets, characters, weapons, and vehicles were all done in this manner. Over a short period of time, Steven found that he disliked this format and sought another way to gather and place information on the saga and its Expanded Universe. On January 21, Steven posted on a section on a talk page regarding the creation of a new Star Wars Portal, but suggested that instead of a portal it should be a wiki. [2]

Chad Barbry

Two days later, Chad entered the discussion and began working out ideas with Steven. Both agreed that this new project would run alongside Wikipedia as a separate, but equal entity—something more than simply a WikiProject. It was here in the discussion that Chad proposed the new nickname of "Wookieepedia," which caught on with Steven and others immediately, and the idea was trailblazed (Steven's request of "Wicketpedia" was an alternate name which did not work nearly as well). However, since Steven was not sure how a new wiki would be created, Chad contacted Angela of then Wikicities (now Wikia) and requested the creation of the new wiki.

Wiki creation

The very first Star Wars Wiki logo (5–22 March 2005)

The second Star Wars Wiki logo (22 March 2005 – 8 January 2006)

Other Wikipedia contributors seemed to be getting more hostile toward new Star Wars articles, so in February 2005, Chad decided to make a request of the Wikipedia Board of Trustees to make a "Star Wars Wiki." His intent was more than just another WikiProject, but an official sister project similar to Wikiquotes. He thought the best solution was a separate, but linked project—a project that was separate enough for the "anti-cruft" Wikipedians, but still one that was officially Wikipedia, so there would be no need for redundant articles between the projects.

In early March 2005, after meeting, the board came back with their answer. They did not want to move Wikipedia the direction proposed by Chad, but recommended creating a Star Wars Wikia. Angela of Wikia was on the Board of Trustees, and contacted Chad to let him know of the board's decision and to set up the new Star Wars Wiki.[3] Part of the process that Angela set up was creating interwiki links so Wikipedia could link to Star Wars Wiki articles and vice versa.

The wiki came online on March 4, 2005, though it sat idle for a few days. Chad, now under the screen name of "WhiteBoy,"[3] was the first user to officially edit the new wiki on March 9, starting with the logo and the moving of articles from Wikipedia to Star Wars Wiki space. The next day, Steven joined the site, using his previous Wikipedia screenname.[4] A third Wikipedian edited that day as well, and was able to add some key image templates to the wiki, before leaving the project altogether.[5] By the first few months, numbers of editors from both Wikipedia and across the web would dramatically increase.

For a brief time, there was some confusion as to how to move articles over from Wikipedia. Chad devised a template for use on Wikipedia to place on talk pages of articles of interest, alerting users that the article would be redirected or moved entirely. The idea was to move as many existing articles from Wikipedia to the new wiki, under the GFDL, making sure to save those under threat of deletion first, and then "wookify" them to the new wiki's standards. The hope was that, though separate, Wikipedians would begin to put the more obscure articles (essentially anything but the most encyclopedic of articles) in the Star Wars Wiki. Main articles, such as Luke Skywalker, would remain at Wikipedia.

Wikipedians in general ultimately saw the Star Wars Wiki as an external site, one not affiliated with Wikipedia enough to actually "transwiki" articles over, like one would with Wikibooks or Wikirecipe. Creating redirects to the Star Wars Wiki was not what the Wikipedians had in mind and they requested that Chad and Steve immediately cease what they believed was legal transwikification;[6] however, articles could still be copied and pasted under the GFDL copyleft license and then "wookified" to fit the scheme of the Star Wars-themed wiki, making sure to place an in-universe article in past tense, or remove redundant sentences. In this aspect, it was decided to have all articles, not just those that were more trivial, lesser known, or more detailed, at the wiki.

Later articles were copied in this fashion and the originals were left alone on Wikipedia for its users to edit under its rules. Eventually Wookieepedia would develop so many articles that Wikipedia would no longer have any to copy. It should also be noted that Wookieepedia was created independently of the Wikimedia Foundation and of any events occurring on Wikipedia.

Great LucasCruft Purge

In March of 2005, perhaps unaware of the formation of the new wiki, a Wikipedian (considered by some a deletionist who wished to prove a point) began to place several Star Wars articles in the Votes for Deletion system (now Articles for Deletion) in an attempt to get these articles deleted from Wikipedia. The purge was later dubbed the "Great LucasCruft Purge" by Steven himself.[7] It was Steven's goal to save as many articles from this individual before the damage was made permanent, and would then impede Star Wars Wiki's ability to grow as it did within the first month. One such article that became a focus of this battle was Order D6-66, which became one of the first stub articles added to the new wiki via the "transwiki" process. The purge garnered the Star Wars Wiki a great deal of public attention, which gave some the erroneous impression that Wookieepedia was created because of the purge.

By year

Master Qui-Gon, more to say, have you?

It is requested that this article, or a section of this article, be expanded.

See the request on the listing or on this article's talk page. Once the improvements have been completed, you may remove this notice and the page's listing.

2005

Just days after the official founding, administrative powers were given to Steven (Riffsyphon1024) by Chad (WhiteBoy). This set up the dual administrator system until the adminships of the users QuentinGeorge, Aidje, and SparqMan later in the year. The wiki, now going under the moniker of "Wookieepedia," developed a steady rate of contributions by new members from all over, and over time lost its reliance on Wikipedia. Eventually Wookieepedia became the primary name for the wiki and an official renaming took place with the creation of a new logo by Tracy Duncan.

Wookieepedian of the Month (WOTM) was first started in June 2005, with Imperialles as the first user to be recognized by the community for his contributions. As of April 2014, 106 different users have been recognized as WOTM. In April 2014 the user Cavalier One was the first to be voted WOTM for a second time.[8]

July brought the first Quotes of the Day on Wookieepedia. Though now considered minuscule in comparison to the current number of quotes now passed through four subcategories, it was a sufficient means to create a new feature on the wiki. Today, QotD/In-Universe is the most edited page of Wookieepedia.[9] Pages such as these show the significant growth of each area over the course of only a few years. In the same month, Wookieepedia's largest ever boost came when an explosion of editors hit the site, sending the wiki's article count over 10,000. Factors to this expansion could be attributed to advertising and the release of Revenge of the Sith. (See wiki growth table below.)

In September 2005, Did You Know? was experimentally created and added to the Main Page, where it has remained as an active feature since.

Consensus Track, a voting and discussion system designed to improve site-wide policies and practices, was formed onto a single page in October 2005. In the same month, Eric Przybylski of Nav-Computer.com allowed Wookieepedia to use his fan-made sector maps on certain articles. His maps have since been replaced with versions directly from canon sources.

2006

The first bot, known here as a "droid," was released onto Wookieepedia on February 8. R2-D2 was designed to clean up instances of repeating words, categories, as well as clean the sandbox page. Since then, another bot named Whistler has made over 150,000 total edits on Wookieepedia.[10]

A new Forum area dubbed the Senate Hall was constructed in March 2006 as part of Wikia's MediaWiki updates, and as a result, the Community Portal talk page no longer was the primary form of wikiwide discussion. Senate Hall was chosen as a name that would not be considered too cliché or overly used for a Star Wars name. Consensus Track was subsequently moved into the forums, and becoming its own section, used specifically for policy creation and alteration on the wiki.

2007

On February 20, 2007, the first Wookiee-Cast was posted. The podcast was parody and commentary by Thefourdotelipsis on subjects relating to Wookieepedia and Star Wars in general. It did not, however, represent the official views of the wiki. The Wookiee-Cast podcasts were released throughout 2007, but have since been on hiatus.

Also in February, the Inquisitorius was formed to handle the structure of the featured article system. See this essay on a history of the Featured Article movement from 2007 onward.

Wookieepedia's Reference desk became the new Knowledge Bank within the forums, where general questions on Star Wars not relating specifically to articles or Wookieepedia could be asked.

A group of Wookieepedians after the Stump the Wookiee contest at Celebration IV.

In May, at least ten Wookieepedians from across the globe attended Celebration IV to help monitor Wookieepedia's table alongside The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia founder Bob Vitas, advertise the wiki, and host a trivia contest named "Stump the Wookiee." In the months before the convention, admins and users came across a notice by Mary Franklin that a group could obtain a table at CIV for free. Immediately the wiki reacted and set up a page for those interested as well as other details of the event. By February, it was known that Wookieepedia won the table and final preparations were made. Some users and administrators that attended and helped man the table alongside Vitas included Riffsyphon1024, Xwing328, jSarek, LtNOWIS, Ozzel, Graestan, Taybo20, Azizlight, Adamwankenobi and Lord Hydronium. As a result of Wookieepedia's appearance and contest at Celebration IV, it was mentioned by the official site for the first time, marking another level of awareness in the Star Wars community. In addition, the event allowed the wiki to express itself to the fans directly.

Also in May, the Votes for Deletion page was renamed to the more in-universe sounding Trash compactor.
In 2007, the wiki's Main Page underwent a major change, which allowed for exploration of the Star Wars universe within films, Expanded Universe, and in-universe categories to be hidden on a subpage with the use of Javascript. In addition, the single search icon in the Wookieepedia's sidebar was upgraded in April to include rotating search icons.

2008

In late February 2008, a Facebook fan page for Wookieepedia was started by Riffsyphon1024. As of April 2014, it has over 67,000 fans.
Wookieepedia began its fourth year on March 4, 2008. A new project of Wookieepedia was the interview process with established authors, artists, actors, and anyone else related to the creation of the Star Wars universe in order to gain more insight for its articles. Some of Wookieepedia's first interviews were given to authors Kevin J. Anderson and Tom Veitch and artist Christian Gossett. This project, however, was short-lived in gaining access to interviewees.

2009

As with many wikis over time, certain features render other ones redundant or useless. Such was the case during what was described by some Wookieepedians as the "Great List Purge" that occurred in late December 2008 and early January 2009, where many old lists created years before were simply out of date as categories had accumulated a far greater number of articles on each topic.

The start of 2009 also saw the addition of an official blog to the Wookieepedia, named the Wookieepedia Newsnet. The blog began regular entries in January, with regular features summarizing monthly Featured Article output, Consensus Track results, Wookieepedian of the Month interviews, and Canon Updates. An RSS feed for the blog was added to the Main Page on April 1st, 2009, with the blog receiving an impressive 1,072 hits on that day.

2010

Wookieepedia's Main Page in the Wikia skin.

July 2010 brought forth a new classification of article, partly inspired by Wikipedia practices. Improvement of minor articles and stubs would lead to the creation of comprehensive articles, those which were complete topics, but too small to be either Good Articles or Featured Articles.

In October 2010, Wookieepedia underwent another skin change by Wikia (see right).

2011

In September 2011, an overhaul at StarWars.com resulted in a new Encyclopedia with every entry linking to a Wookieepedia article.

By November, the Senate Hall was altered to include listings for sticky threads, which would stick to the top of a separate list.

2013

2014

With Lucasfilm Ltd.'s announcement on April 25, 2014 to replace the Expanded Universe with the "Legends" brand, members of Wookieepedia subsequently discussed and voted to retain all information within Star Wars media,[13] but split applicable articles into their respective canonical parts —Canon and Legends— with the use of tabs.[14] Editors on the site began creating new articles reflecting information only relevant to the new system of canon and by October 21 had created over 1000 in-universe canon articles.

Multi-year phenomena

Over the course of the wiki's history, several attempts were made to curb fanon on user pages or delete it altogether. Most votes resulted in no consensus and the issue was pushed back until a few months later when it became known again. A major influence became the creation of the Star Wars Fanon Wiki which was accepting all forms of fanon written by its users. Most users to that wiki happened to be Wookieepedians as well, however not in the form of long-staying administrators, but rather those who had been told not to add fanon to Wookieepedia. This shift of population was seen as general amounts of fanon reduced, but there were still users that went ahead with filling in their user pages and then not editing any or even a few articles. This however did not limit the number of true contributors to Wookieepedia.

Each year since 2005, a contest for Miss Star Wars and Mister Star Wars has been held in December, with voting up to the new year. The winners, either male or female characters in the galaxy, retain their crowns until the next vote and can continue to win as long as they receive enough support.

In 2009, the wiki temporarily became "film purist", with the Main Page only linking to canon presented in the six films and nothing from the Expanded Universe.

In 2010, Wookieepedia claimed to have stumbled across a lost pilot for a television series named "Jabba!" and created articles on supposed characters in the series.

April Fools' Day 2011 resulted in the entire wiki converting to "3-D" to celebrate the upcoming films in 3-D, a Cease and Desist Notice placed on the Main Page, and various manipulations to the Mofference page the day before the actual meeting.

For 2012, Wookieepedia and the Star Wars Fanon Wiki announced that they would merge. Furthermore, "Dave Filoni" announced that canon and fanon were now the same thing with "Leland Chee" later explaining that Wookieepedia would replace the Holocron continuity database as the official canon source for Lucasfilm licensees. To further the joke, many users of the Wook created their own fanon articles, edited existing articles to add fanon, and imported articles from Darthipedia and the fanon wiki.

In 2013, Wookieepedia announced that it had access to new materials from Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens that would incorporate canon from J.J. Abrams' Star Trek universe into the upcoming film, and subsequently changed its name to Memory Aurek, a spin on Star Trek's Memory Alpha. The new film was retitled Star Wars Episode VII: Star Trek and linked from the Wookieepedia Facebook page, where the post received close to 100,000 views in a day.[15] Additional articles like Jedi mind meld and Spock were added to flesh out the background for the "new" film. An announcement for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed III was made. Other mashups and crossovers were also created and linked to in WookieeNews.

In 2014, Wookieepedia announced that it would be moving to a paid viewing system, "Wookieepedia Pro," in which users would only be allowed to view only 10 articles on the site per month, unless they either paid $4.99 monthly for a regular subscription that allowed unlimited article viewing, or $9.99 for a premium subscription that also eliminated advertisements. In an attempt to lend credibility to the farce, administrators and users maintained somewhat before the actual start of April Fool's Day and even after the end of it that the announced new model was not a joke. Despite this, at least one user pointed out that Wikia's stated policies specifically forbid any attempt to impose a fee in order to view content and also that there was no technical mechanism available that would allow for such a system to be implemented.

Another gag involved the featuring of a heavily edited excerpt of the article about breasts on Wookieepedia's main page. This created controversy on a number of Star Wars fansites outside of Wookieepedia, as well as an attempt to delete the Breast article, which was closed heavily in favor of keeping.

Other gags included a 404 error page featuring Dave Filoni and "WP:VG-Pro," in which only those signed up for the premium model would be allowed to be part of the wiki's video game project.

According to Alexa Internet, Wikia's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 141. As of April 2014, 1.84% of all Wikia visitors access the Wookieepedia subdomain.[16] It is the sixth largest Wikia-hosted wiki in terms of article count.[17]

Article milestones

WookieeProjects

Since 2006, Wookieepedia has been host to many projects which have improved related groups of articles, either by subject or by source, to Featured Article, Good Article, and Comprehensive Article status. Barn Burners, wiki-wide variations of these projects, were started in 2011 in the Senate Hall to flash improve topics.

2005-2008

Wookieepedia was mentioned in Time magazine on May 29, 2005 as one of Wikia's largest wikis; only Star Trek's Memory Alpha was larger, though as of November 12, 2005, Wookieepedia has exceeded Memory Alpha in legitimate number of articles. However shortly thereafter, Wookieepedia was overtaken by World of Warcraft'sWoWwiki.

In Matt and Ben Loewen's audio commentary for A New Hope, done as an episode of their fan audio show Star Wars FM, they cite Wookieepedia as where they looked for information on the retconned appearance of the 501st in the film. In reference to the site's name, Matt quips "I love that name!"

Pablo Hidalgo mentioned Wookieepedia in one of his blog entries. He stated "…there's a variety of reasons I can't go into that playground as someone on the official side of things. I try to avoid it, though from what I've seen it's pretty darn impressive."[30]

In an interview with comedian C.C. Banana regarding the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, Peter Mayhew was asked if he contributed to the site, and replied that while he hadn't, "I do click onto it every now and again."[31]

In an NBC blog, Aaron Bleyaert wrote about Wookieepedia's quick response to changing Motti's name to the disputed but canon name Conan Antonio Motti. In the blog, released a day after George Lucas's statement, he praised Wookieepedia for their quickness in incorporating it into the Star Wars mythology.[32]

On May 4, 2007, Variety.com wrote an article on Wookieepedia.[33] The article was later included on Hyperspace[34] and the starwars.com Homing Beacon #187—making this the first time the official site has recognized the existence of Wookieepedia.

On May 8, 2007, JoBlo.com posted a small article on Wookieepedia. As of its posting, the wiki had 47,916 articles.[35]

On May 18, 2007, StarWars.com again mentioned Wookieepedia in the Behind-the-Scenes Stage Programming" section of its article "Insider's Guide to Celebration IV: Part III."[36] Wookieepedia was later mentioned in the printed form of the guide available at the event.

Wookieepedia was allotted time on the "Behind the Scenes" stage during Celebration IV for a trivia game set up by members of the Wookieepedia community.

In the June2007 issue of Reason magazine, an article about Jimmy Wales discussed the Star Wars wikia community as one of the largest wikis.[37]

Dave Filoni mentioned on the Official Star Wars Blog, among other topics, that George Lucas was shown printed Wookieepedia articles when discussing material he was unaware of. [45]

On October 3, 2008, Associated Content.com posted an article on Wookieepedia, stating that it contained "so much minutiae that if Wookieepedia were an actual Star Wars convention the geek quotient would suffocate the average person."[46]

A number of images (from various media) on Wookieepedia were included in The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. Some entries on subjects that received passing mentions in their original source were copied almost directly from Wookieepedia's articles on the subject. Samples include Jumerian and Kallil-virus. Assumptions that existed in these articles, present because they were created as early as 2006, thus became canonical.

2009-2013

The 106th issue of Star Wars Insider, published in January 2009, included an article about the development of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia in its Blaster department. It acknowledged that such an encyclopedia was forced to compete with Wookieepedia, just as general encyclopedias must compete with Wikipedia. A sidebar in the same article, entitled "Sizing Up Star Wars," featured Steve Sansweet stating, "From what I've seen, Wookieepedia is a superbly-run resource and the community does a wonderful job of policing and self-editing. And that's partly because of the kind of people that make up Star Wars fandom."

On March 6, 2009, senior environment artist Alex Thomas mentioned in the BioWare Blog post on the Star Wars: The Old Republic website that Wookieepedia used an early screenshot for Nal Hutta in the game as the article's only depiction of the planet surface so far, given its previously unexplored status.

Author Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff described Wookieepedia as a great place to begin researching things while writing her novel Shadow Games, before redirecting her research to a proper guide or expert. She has additionally mentioned Wookieepedia in several blog entries.[48][49]

The acknowledgments of The Essential Atlas included several names of Wookieepedians that helped out the authors.

On an episode of the Australian game show Good News Week, aired April 11, 2011, English comedian Simon Pegg correctly answered "Wookieepedia" when asked "What is the name of the comprehensive Star Wars database that can be edited by members of the public?"[54]

On June 6, 2011, Wookieepedia was mentioned in an article entitled "The weirdest stories from the Star Wars Expanded Universe", on Gawker Media's io9.[55]

In an interview with Easy Crafts Wiki in September 2011, Bonnie Burton noted that she loves Wookieepedia "for all the weird facts and extensive files on every single Star Wars thing you can imagine."[57]

On March 2, 2012, Wookieepedia was cited in a Cracked article on common misconceptions and misquotations in pop culture history.[59]

Wookieepedia was mentioned in the acknowledgements of Jason Fry's The Essential Guide to Warfare. In a later interview in April 2012, Jason Fry noted the wiki as being a "fabulous resource" but "not an endpoint".[60]

On April 25, 2012, io9's article "10 Alien Species from Star Wars Who Became Jedi Knights" used Wookieepedia as a source.[61]

On March 3, 2013, Wookieepedia's article on "Force meld" was referred to by Lucasfilm's Director of Communications Lynne Hale in response to confusion over the apparent misuse of the term "Jedi Mind Meld" by United States President Barack Obama during a news conference.[67]

Wookieepedia is mentioned as a source on Mythbusters' Star Wars special.

2014-Present

On Mythbusters' Star Wars special "Revenge of the Myth", which aired January 4, 2014, Wookieepedia is mentioned by Adam Savage as a source for the temperature on Hoth in determining the survivability inside a tauntaun.[73]

On February 28, 2014, Dorkly released a comic featuring the eight types of Star Wars fans; one of the eight types was "Wookieepedia Editors", a subset of "Extended Canon-ites". Wookieepedia editors were represented by an Emperor Palpatine figure advertising Yuuzhan Vong trivia at his bar that no one would attend and a fan debating with himself on which member of the Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes was his favorite.[75]

On August 7, 2014, io9 mentioned "Wookiepedia" in regards to a "crisis" involving the various calendars of Star Wars after the creation of Legends materials and Leland Chee's involvement in clarifying these now defunct calendars on Twitter.[76]

Chris Hardwick and his "hype nerd" recite from Wookieepedia.

On October 1, 2014, @midnight, hosted by Chris Hardwick and with guests Thomas Lennon, Cameron Esposito, and Daniel Sloss, Wookieepedia was used in a game titled "NPR Anchor or Minor Star Wars Character". When referring to "the online Star Wars encyclopedia known as Wookieepedia", Hardwick states to the crowd "that's 100% true". In the game, Hardwick asks his contestants whether the names Jad Abumrad, Mas Amedda, and Jian Ghomeshi are NPR anchors or minor Star Wars characters, with Mas Amedda being the only character. Upon reveal, Hardwick displays an image of Amedda from his Wookieepedia article with the Wikia skin present. Hardwick follows this by then viewing Amedda as a NPR anchor wearing a "I love Shelter Cats" sweater. Hardwick also proceeds to view the NPR anchors as Star Wars characters, with Abumrad as C-3PO and Ghomeshi as Emperor Palpatine respectively.[77][78]

On December 1, 2014, after the release of the teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, @midnight once again featured Wookieepedia to explain to fanboys upset with John Boyega apparently as a black stormtrooper that stormtroopers were no longer clones by the time of the new film. This episode with Tom Papa, Dave Hill, and Morgan Murphy involved displaying a version of Wookieepedia's stormtrooper article, with Chris Hardwick and his "hype nerd" reading various lines from the article. Emphasis was given to certain clips of information, particularly in how Jango Fett's clones were marginalized. It should be noted that the article in question was the Legends stormtrooper article.[79][80]

Criticism

Like all wikis, Wookieepedia has been criticized for common wiki flaws such as pushing a certain point of view and for its easily editable nature, leading to frequent vandalism. A question about the validity of the wiki was asked on the TFN Boards in 2008 whether it continued to be reliable, to which jSarek had replied "To a degree. We generally keep the nonsense out, but we're not perfect, and sometimes something slips through."[81] Vandalism can easily distort canonical information if not checked, although Wookieepedia is one of the most active wikis.

Influences on canon

Padawan Massacre - The event was first called "Padawan Massacre of Taris" on Wookieepedia for lack of an official term. Later this term was adopted into canon sources, before being finalized by John Jackson Miller as "Padawan Massacre".

Sian Jeisel - On Wookieepedia, the image for this character cosplayed at Celebration III by Jan Duursema's daughter Sian was given as "Sian Duursema as Sian Jeisel". It is unclear whether this actually led to the canonization of the full name as such. [source?]

Mygeetan - before being given the name "Lurmen", "Mygeetan" began as a fanon nickname on Wookieepedia for the nameless natives of Mygeeto. Later this term was adopted in The Essential Atlas.

In other languages

In addition to Wookieepedia, several other Star Wars wikis exist in multiple languages. Though these different language encyclopedias were started by, and are currently run by different people, many are located at the wikia.com subdomain, meaning that membership at any one version is extended to the others as well.